Toxic Free NC Tip of the Week: Organic on a Budget

Not just for hippies anymore.

Eating organic is not just for hippies, or yuppies for that matter, and it isn’t just “fancy” food, either. It’s for YOU. It’s french fries, hamburgers and apple juice just as much as it’s arugula and tofu, and it’s really important for your health, for your babies - be they actual or potential - for our environment, and for our economy. I’m serious!

I didn’t always feel this way, and so if you’ve been resistant to making the switch, I bet I have some idea as to why. For myself, it was a combination of youthful invincibility and brokeness - ah youth. One conversation in particular stands out in my memory. I was 22, I’d been traveling abroad for almost a year since graduating from college, living super cheap - you know, the cheapest ticket on the crowded smoky slow bus, the tiny dorm room shared with 4 strangers in the cheapest hotel, and so on. When I got back to the States, I stayed at my Mom’s house for two weeks before my next adventure in invincibility and cheapness (a.k.a. trying to find a job) and standing in her kitchen one day I said something like, “Don’t worry about fixing me the fancy organic food, Mom, it’s OK, I’ll eat the cheap stuff. It’s the people’s food!”

She spun on her heels and gave me a hard look. “People’s food my ass,” she said. “I know you’ve been out in the hinterlands living on $2 a day, but organic food isn’t just some luxury, it’s the right thing to do, and when we can, we should. You can ignore all the chemicals and hormones all you want, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there and not dangerous. The chemicals in that food don’t only hurt you, they hurt the planet, and that’s just wrong.”

End of conversation. Yeesh.

She was right though, and she reminded me that I had (and still have!) a set of values about the importance of things like fairness, justice and respect for nature. Those high ideals don’t mean a whole lot unless they apply to normal mundane things like buying food just as much as they apply to grand things, like peace and freedom.

It must have worked. Fast forward to the present, and I of course work for Toxic Free NC, have a farm share in a local organic farm, and made my weekly visit to Moore Square Farmers Market yesterday. Even on my humble non-profit salary, I’ve made it a priority to buy organic whenever I can, and still manage to spend money on beer and shows and a mortgage and all that normal stuff too. (That picture is my CSA farmer, Fred Miller.)

People have a variety of different reasons for choosing organic food. Health concerns are high on the list - conventionally farmed veggies are full of pesticides, and animal products full of hormones and antibiotics, plus some pesticides from their feed. (Check out this new website to see exactly what is on your food: whatsonmyfood.org.) These chemicals are suspected in a wide range of increasingly common health disorders, and as is the case for most environmental pollutants, they’re the most problematic for babies and young children. With their rapidly-growing bodies, babies and small children are more vulnerable to health damage from pesticides and other contaminants in their food, water, or air. Studies have connected pesticide exposure in utero and during childhood with a wide range of illnesses - asthma, some childhood cancers and even cancer later in life, autism, learning and behavioral problems, premature puberty, and the list goes on. To be clear, most if not all of the studies I’m thinking of look at kids who live on or near a farm or whose parents use pesticides in the house, yard or on the pets, and not necessarily at kids who are only being exposed to pesticides through their diets. But then, the vast majority of kids are exposed to pesticides through their diets, so who would you compare them to?

Then there are the justice and fairness arguments, a.k.a. the karma argument. Pesticides aren’t just bad for me, they’re bad for the people that grow the food and their kids too, and those people often don’t have all the safety information and equipment they need to protect themselves. People shouldn’t be made to work with toxic stuff unless they’re really well paid, well informed about the risks, and have great health benefits. Sadly, such is not the case for your average farm worker.

The karma argument comes into play for me with animals as well. The chemical differences may be small or nil, but you can’t tell me that meat, milk or eggs from an animal that never saw the light of day and spent its life crammed in a cage are the same as meat, milk and eggs from animals that live relatively natural lives. Misery must affect quality. Regardless, it’s cruel: I wouldn’t have the heart or stomach to witness that kind of treatment, so I don’t think it’s right for me to consume the products that come of it, at least not where it’s possible to avoid it.

There are great economic arguments for organic farming, too. Sustainability is about money as much as it’s about the environment, because a farm is a business and has to keep going. On the one hand, organic farmers receive no subsidies from the government, they have a much harder time when it comes to crop insurance, and they must pay if they want organic certification, so their financial risk can be greater. On the other hand, people will pay a little more for organic foods, and the more middle-men you can cut out of the supply chain by selling locally, the more of that money goes right back to the farmer. Plus, organic farming is much closer to being a closed system. Organic farmers build up soil nutrients using composted farm “wastes” and apply preventive strategies to minimize losses from pests. That’s much more financially savvy than using up every last drop of life in the soil, and being completely dependent on purchased inputs of fertilizer and pesticides to keep a conventional farm going. It’s thrifty, which brings me to my main point….

Organic on the Cheap. It’s totally possible. Toxic Free NC has a great article on this subject which you can check out if you want to read more, but here’s a couple hot tips:

* Choose wisely. Every few years, Environmental Working Group puts out a “Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce,” showing which conventionally-grown fruits and veggies test highest for pesticide residues, both on and in the fruit. When you’re at the grocery store and trying to make tough choices about what you can afford to buy organic, referring to that list can really help! For instance, though organic strawberries can be really pricey, I’ll never buy the conventionally-grown ones because they always pop up near the top of the list of most pesticide-contaminated fruits and veggies. By comparison, sweet corn comes up near the top of the “clean” list, so when it’s in season locally and there’s 4-for-a-dollar deals everywhere, I’ll sometimes buy it locally-grown but not organic.

* The freezer is your friend. By which I mean to say, if you (like me) loooove fresh tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, herbs, squash, etc. etc, please don’t try and buy lots of them in January and February in NC, organic or no - they’ll be extra expensive, and kinda lousy compared to what’s available in summer. A better idea is to buy extra in summer when they’re cheap, local and delicious, and freeze them, fresh or prepared, for use in the wintertime. It’s really as easy as washing and drying fresh produce, sticking it in a freezer bag, pressing out all the air, and popping it in the freezer. Done. Here’s some information on proper freezing and thawing.

* Generic brands and bulk bins. Buying local is a big thing for me as well as organic, but some things I’m rarely going to find both local and organic. I’m thinking about things like flour, sugar, nuts, beans, pasta, rice, etc. When I’m not going to find a locally-produced version, and especially where it’s a staple food where the brand doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to my taste buds, I’ll go for the cheapest organic version I can find. Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, and Kroger all have store brand organic labels that can be a totally good deal. My latest craze is a bag of 5 organic apples for $2.50 at the Whole Foods. Yeah, they’re from Washington state, but I’m hooked on apples and we won’t have apples in NC until the fall, so I’ll take the bargain organic WA apples the rest of the year, thank you very much! Check out those bulk bins too - there’s great stuff in there, it’s super cheap, and you save the world from having to create and print another package, which is nice.

Toxic Free NC is working with coalition partners from around the state to promote organic & sustainable agriculture, and make changes to state policy that make it easier for people to get locally-grown organic foods at an affordable price. We’re also keen on winning reforms that would better protect farm workers from pesticides on the job at conventional farms. We’ve got some hot action alerts on these topics right now - we’d love for you to come on over to our website and get involved.

PS: The new documentary Food, Inc. is showing at The Colony on July 18th! Details.

Get Raleigh Updates

Some things I learned at my place of employment which cannot be named due to it’s high profile as an all natural and organic grocery store to add in:

- the bulk bins can be your friend, but also remember to look at the packaged stuff in the bulk area too. Sometimes there are items there that actually cost LESS per once once you do the math…and most of the packaging is able to be recycled.

- also with the store brand and even not the store brand, check out companies websites for print at home coupons, and stop by customer service during your shopping for in store coupons and specials.

- and one last shameless plugs, the Debbie Meyer Green Bags for storing produce are AWESOME. I kept a head of lettuce in my fridge for two weeks because of this product. Totally worth the initial expense. Yay!

Here’s an argument for organic farming. Once, not very long ago, there was no manufactured chemicals or processes that were used in food production…thus all was this magic organic farming. Just like we had babies without hospitals until the last hundred years or so. We have come up the pendulum ready to round full circle. Like the book The King the Mice and the Cheese (Nancy + Eric Gurney 1965) our progress in food science has proven that nature’s model is better than human’s narrow view.

Hi! My name is Daphne and I just want to thank you for all the helpful information that you have on organic foods. As for me, I also believe going organic is the best way to go. Do to the fact that it has higher nutritional value than conventional foods.

Great article! Folks who are interested in eating well on a very low budget may be interested in my site, CookforGood.com. I’m based in Raleigh and the monthly food prices come from Raleigh and Durham. It provides shopping lists, meal plans, recipes, and a cooking program to help you cook from scratch with minimal time and effort.

Eat well on an average of $1.17 a meal for the regular plan and only $1.73 for the “green” plan which uses mostly organic or sustainably raised ingredients (prices from May 2009 using the spring menu). The food-stamp allowance in North Carolina for a family of four is $1.99 per person per meal.

It’s not just about money, either. You’ll be doing good, too: good for your health, good for your family, and good for your community and your planet.

Want to do good for others? Come to our foodraiser for the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle on July 18th. It’s a special showing of the documentary Food, Inc., about the industrialization of our food systems. Visit http://www.cookforgood.com/foodinc

I don’t read local papers here in Raleigh, NC but understand there was recent warning about picking blackberries on I 540 beltline. they were sprayed w/ herbicydes (sp?). I picked 10 gals and make jams. Am i in harms way? what do you recommend i do? i’ve rinsed well and boiled in canning process. Any thoughts?